The Walking Dead: Episode 2 – Starved for Help Review

Telltale Games has released the second episode in the five episode run of their first season of The Walking Dead video game. This story is based on the events in the comics, not the television show, and marks the journey of Lee Everett after the events of the zombie breakout.

The first episode was fantastic, and Starved for Help takes that foundation and delivers, in this writer’s opinion, an even better glimpse into the world of The Walking Dead.

Telltale is doing wonderful work.

The Walking Dead is about people, not zombies.

Episode 2 of Telltale’s Walking Dead experience will pit players against more living people than zombies. That fact right there shows that the game making company knows exactly what this universe of walking corpses is all about.

Zombies are a backdrop in series creator’s Robert Kirkman’s lore: They’re the Nazis in a WWII movie, the earthquake in a disaster flick and the baseball games in The Sandlot. They play an active role in creating the world of The Walking Dead, but zombies do not dictate the entire plot.

Starved for Help will see players make decisions and interact with other survivors more than it will see the movement of the undead. That makes this entry in the series, so far, my favorite. We won’t see those decisions come to fruition yet (something that will either make or break the final value of this full experience), but making them is often stressful and depressing.

And that’s exactly what the zombie apocalypse should be; stressful and depressing. Surviving is hard, making decisions is hard, and Telltale has managed to pull both facets off again.

You’ll see it coming from a mile away.

The one complaint I have about the direction of Starved for Help is that the ending twist will feel obvious at about the mid-point of the episode. You’ll see the reveal coming, and you won’t be surprised at all in the episodes most dramatic moment.

However, the nature of getting to the twist and the wake it leaves both work exceptionally well. In spite of the fact that you’ll be able to guess at the ending, getting there is exceptionally fun. This is truly a case of the journey being more enjoyable than the final destination, and that’s something special.

A step in the right direction.

Interactive, point-and-click adventures are not something every gamer can sit down and immediately enjoy. Players that like this kind of thing are the type that champion story and moment-to-moment drama over exploding buildings and headshots. If you like playing part in a well crafted tale, you’ll love Telltale’s shake with The Walking Dead.

With Starved for Help, Telltale Games continues to demonstrate that, aside from Kirkman himself, they have the best handle on what it means to work with The Walking Dead fiction. This isn’t about kids staying in the house, shotguns or FPS mechanics. The Walking Dead is about the savage nature of human beings, and the decisions that bring them to their knees.

Starved for Help is one more step towards the end of the world. It’s beautiful.

We received a full season pass for The Walking Dead on PC from Telltale Games. We’re able to download these games on release day. We play them to completion before starting our written review. Confused about how we score games? Read more right here.